Viola
marisa.bushman@project440.org

A native New Yorker, violist Marisa Bushman’s musical career has reached all corners of the world. She is currently a fellow at the New World Symphony where she frequently sits principal under Michael Tilson Thomas. Ms. Bushman is a three-time recipient of the Gluck Chamber Music Fellowship, a winner of the UCLA Collaborative Concerto Competition, and a former member of the prestigious Kuttner Quartet at Indiana University. Marisa received her Bachelor’s Degree in Viola Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles and her Masters in Viola Performance at Indiana University. Her principal teachers have included Atar Arad, Paul Coletti and Ralph Fielding.

Ms. Bushman has had a wide variety of performance experience. She has performed as a soloist, a member of the prestigious Kuttner Quartet, led viola sections in New York, Los Angeles, Indiana and Miami, and toured extensively throughout South and Central America, and South Africa. Marisa has also been a fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival and at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.

While Ms. Bushman is an active orchestra musician, she holds a profound passion for chamber music. Ever since Marisa performed in a highly acclaimed Honors Quartet through the New York Youth Symphony in high school she has been drawn to the impact and raw emotional potency of playing in chamber ensembles. In the summer of 2004, Marisa visited South Africa with her string quartet, performing and teaching through the Stellenbosch University International Chamber Music Festival. Her quartet at Indiana University gave multiple recitals and performed with various faculty members and she has been a regular addition to the Chamber Music Series the New World Symphony holds. Marisa has been actively involved with the Definiens Project, a Los Angeles based non-profit organization whose mission is to redefine chamber music within a contemporary context by incorporating multi-media elements into programming that consists largely of commissioned and recently published compositions.